World Largest -Biggest Stamp Collection

That ad describes a collection with ten-foot pole marks.

The 'World Traveler' collection should be a real contender for largest private collection.

Checkout the R.A. Siegel auction site to read the prefix to the 2013 sale of the 'World Traveler' highlights.

From the prefix
Photo of shelved albums,
1840-1981
750+ Scott albums, 99% complete on major numbers, 83% complete on minor numbers.

The collection of billionaire Erivan Haub has got to be one of the very largest and most valuable ever formed.not only was it a complete WW collection but it contained the rarest of postal history items such as the Blue Boy. It took three auction firms over five years to sell only the "highlights". Kohler alone held 30 Haub auctions.

The postal history in that collection was astounding.

This confirms that a lot of these massive collections are hidden from the general public and also from the philatelic community . The only people who know who these buyers are, the employees of the major stamp auction firms and they are told to keep their knowledge away from the public and away from staff of other stamp auction firms .

Someone like that bought through an agent; the agent was really the only one who knew.

The Magnolia sales from Siegel are kind of along that vein, where a single collector appears to have wanted relative anonymity, but managed to acquire vast holdings of important material that takes years to liquidate.

That is true REVCOLLECTOR .

Chuck who was my agent,still had me settle up with the different auction firms and billed for his service . The auction firms knew it was me .But other bidders didn't know same with Frank a agent in New York .The auction firms knew who paid for the lot .

Today was a huge collection's auction at Kelleher {1-20 and 21-26 }. I sat thru most of it while watching a huge reversal in the stock market also . On the subject of stamp collections , there was a lot of bidding and prices showed some surprises thru out the auction . To me pricing has gotten stronger . Sure there was a few dogs and those are not hard to find but overall a strong sale .

The question is how is the stamp market ?

Well there is a simple answer . It comes in two levels that must be understood . First there is more money on this planet and that is increasing . Yes , twice as much as there was 20 years ago and 5x as much since the 1980 's ,I think this fact will change the market for stamp over the next few years {maybe I am watch both gold and silver too much }.

Second thing this market is telling me is we lost the beginner / hobbyist stamp collector ,the common stuff that younger people collected is floating around with little buying interest ,the E-bay sellers have been reduced as buyers at the auction firms so better stuff is getting stronger for advance collectors with no interest in the common stuff that use to be purchased by a younger generation .

I agree with this. Collecting stamps for younger people has not been high on the list as a hobby since the advent of the internet and video games. There are too many competing things to take your money and time away from old-school stamp collecting.

COVID in 2020 also has a major impact on the hobby as people looking to fill time turned back to nostalgic childhood hobbies. Some stayed in the hunt as things returned to normal. They have the financial wherewithal to fund their collecting and are not looking for packet stamps.

Finally, there is a financial schism in the US that is ever increasing where those that "have" increasingly have more and those that are just making ends meet are losing ground. That lower and middle class space is not the same as it was in the 50s and 60s when collecting stamps was in the sweet spot for millions of households.

Like with luxury cars, housing and vacations, the market is booming for trophy stamps (Siegel's sales revenue continues upwards) while the market for cheap material continues to shrink.

I have felt the market has been stratified for quite some time.

If you watch posts on places like Facebook and Reddit, many are inheriting collections (mostly beginner ones) but have no interest in collecting. It not about access or prices, it is just interest especially at earlier ages.

The problem with a stratified stamp market (and economy) is that it doesn't bode well for the future. If stamp collecting has lost the younger generations along with the working and middle classes, then what is its long-term viability?

Nostalgia is a big driver in almost any collecting hobby. If young people don't collect stamps, then what will the motivation be to start when they become middle aged or older. If Millennials, Gen-Z, and Gen Alpha have almost no interest in stamps, who is going to be buying even the currently marketable high-end stamps 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Can the stamp market survive just on the shoulders of a handful of high-net-worth individuals?

I'm a 1973 born Gen-Xer and stamp collecting wasn't that popular even for my generation. I remember my large elementary school tried making a stamp club. I went to a meeting or two, but there were hardly any kids attending it. My generation was the first to grow up with video game consoles and home computers, so the digital distractions were already starting back in the 80s. Not surprisingly, vintage video game collecting is now a popular hobby for people born in the 1970s and 80s, but stamp collecting isn't.

Here is what I do with cheap stamps. I simply just start another stamp collection.

STAMP SLACKER ---- You said "is that it doesn't bode well for the future ........ what is its long term viability ?" the answer is something new is coming to the hobby in the future .During my life time I seen new interest in the hobby with new firms coming in to the hobby like H.E.Harris , Zenith ,Glaceleon , and Mystic all approval firms that exploded stamps to a new generation thru mail order approvals . Then in the 70's we had inflation running prices up , then ebay push everything up , then we had the print your own albums . All these new things about every ten years or so .

So we are due for a new twist to get stamps going again .

I am guessing but it may be something like a investment funded , sealed packaged as a unit in $1,000 , $5,000 and $10,000 maybe $100,000 units delivered to your house . You could see it as hard asset you can hold and sell .
I think the days of holding real wealth as hard assets is in the future I am sure as small as stamps are such a minor part of the investment community , that some one with a $100,000,000 dollars is going to make a play to turn it into a asset class and then manipulate the value by selling it to investors around the world .

Floor Trader - If innovations happen in the hobby every ten years or so, we must be way overdue for something new. Can you tell me one major change that has happened in stamp collecting in the last twenty years?

Grading and slabbing stamps to make them more marketable has been tried but without a lot of success.

I suppose someone could try to make stamp investing similar to what Masterworks has tried to do with fine art. Rather than getting the stamps delivered to your home, you would just invest in a portfolio of rare stamps online and let the investment company hold and eventually sell them. It definitely isn't stamp collecting but it could monetize the high-end portion of the stamp market into an investment vehicle.